


i am, i am, i am

by orphan_account



Series: the quiznacking saga [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Fusion, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Angst, Character Study, Gen, Loss, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-25 23:18:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18172748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Hunk joins the Resistance at eighteen, away from his best friend and the only home he's ever known. What happens after changes the trajectory of everything.





	i am, i am, i am

**Author's Note:**

> So, I haven't updated this in like very long, and yes this is out of chronological order, but DO NOT WORRY I am working on the original trilogy. I just really wanted to write something hunk centric but took such a long time because I'm lazy. Hehe. Also, a note. While many characters here are based off a Star Wars character (Allura to Leia, Adam to Han, so on and so forth) Hunk is the only main character who isn't. Honestly, he's more of an amalgation of a bunch of different characters and ideas, so just keep that in mind. Lance, however, does have a Star Wars counterpart. Bonus points if you figure it out! Also check out the other fic in this series if you find this interesting!
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading and dealing with my crossovers, and please don't hesitate to drop a comment down below!!! ⭐️
> 
> Title is from 'The Bell Jar' by Sylvia Plath!

 

Hunk lands on the Resistance base two days after his eighteenth birthday, three weeks after Lance has stopped talking, and one month after Veronica Macias’ X-Wing is found.

The thing is - well - there’s a lot of things Hunk could bring up, actually, if he really took everything he knew and all the fragments and made them into a map to guide him where he’s supposed to go. But since the universe is one big ball of wobbly time and unrealistic expectations, he doesn’t. Hunk fixes things. And he is a pragmatist.

So he doesn’t.

He applies for an engineering position, because he is not a pilot, or a leader - doesn’t marvel in the aftershocks of adrenaline from flying, and he doesn’t fill the room and his voice shakes. There’s a little part of him that’s curious about taking the controls of a ship - having the sky in your palm, but the _going to probably die_ part outweighs it. By a lot.

He isn't a pilot, but Lance is. He isn't a leader, but Veronica was.

 _Was_ still sticks heavy in his throat, because there are times when he remembers her snarky grin, her fierce gaze, the way her hands tangled with the verses of the stories she would tell him and Lance. Sometimes, when he can’t sleep, his eyes catch Olkaria IV’s twilight sky and he wonders - wonders if she knew that she would be a prisoner of the sky - forever immortalized in stardust and galaxies and other intergalactic shit.

And Hunk is afraid - that is a truth. And maybe there is a small part of him that yaps that _he can’t do this, he can’t-_ but it is squashed by the thought that Veronica Macias, a person that Hunk has known for his whole life is dead - dead because she believed in something strong and hopeful and brimming. And she had been shot down - for what?

 

The Resistance pilot that tells of Veronica’s death - her face is pale amethyst and her eyes are sharp, flinty, but quietly mournful - has a ship. She is leaving for the Resistance base on D’Qar in six days.

One night, when Hunk is in his tiny little workshop surrounded by fragments of old parts and gears and piloting manuals, trying to concentrate, her voice sneaks in.

It is surprised. “How old are you?”

Later, Hunk will convince himself that the Resistance pilot - Axca - did not scare the living crap out of him. But he jolts, and awkwardly smacks into the wall.

He finds his voice while holding his tools in his hands, familiar. “S-seventeen, ma’am. Eighteen in a week.”

She doesn’t flinch when he says that - it is almost like she is used to the title. Her eyes flick around his tiny little space - and something in Hunk’s stomach curls.

Her eyes catch on his stack of X-Wing and A-Wing blueprints and she stretches a hand to smooth them out. “Who taught you this?”

Hunk doesn’t answer - because it was Veronica - Veronica who flew her X-Wing in and showed Lance and Hunk the controls, careful, with a grin - and while Lance had been fiddling around, she’d looked at Hunk, and her eyes were warm. She’d always see right through people.

She’d asked him if he’d wanted to see the underside of the X-Wing, with all the mechanics and the parts. He’d hesitated, but she’d smiled, and she’d pointed out all of the different parts and pieces. The way they had all synchronized into one system  was probably the most beautiful thing Hunk had ever seen.

He doesn’t answer. Axca does not press.

“You’re too young,” she says, and her voice is cool with sadness.

“Why?” Hunk breaks out, and his mind goes into hyperdrive, suddenly aware of his own courage. It is unfamiliar, and fleeting and fueled by the curiosity and the anger he has. It boils down deep - simmering, jolting whenever he saw Veronica’s eyes flash dark and lips thinning at any mention of the First Order. And he is afraid, and scared to fuck - but he is also angry.

She looks at him once more before leaving, and her lips tick into what looks like a smile, but Hunk knows it is just a trembly facade of trying not to cry.

“You are too young for this.”

 

She has said that twice.

It doesn’t matter, because Hunk goes to her the next day to ask when she is leaving for the Resistance base.

Right after he does it, he almost lurches.

The thought of what he did scares him even more than flying.  

 

His grandmother is not okay with it.

Which Hunk should have expected - but he isn't really one for recklessly endangering himself and making spur of the moment decisions. Not until yesterday anyway.

She smack talks in Olkarion, the words melding into Hunk’s head, and memories of childhood mishaps come to him. His grandmother is firm, but immeasurably kind - he remember years and years of her crinkled hands carefully enclosing his various scrapes and bumps with ointment and bandages. The thought of leaving her, leaving his home, and his heart, makes him want to throw up all over again, and he's sure his cheeks are burning. His eyes sting.

He does not look up. He is afraid - not of her, but of what comes after.

Her hands cup his face, warm and sure, and Hunk looks up, a gut reaction. Her sunset brown eyes are strong, but shine with tears.

“You are too good, _laʻu tama.”_ He was half sure that she would say _too young and what about your mothers?_

He does not remember much of either of them, and for a brief hurtful moment, wishes he did. Wishes that he'd asked instead of being afraid of grief, of tearing open wounds and hurt.

Hunk wants to ask. But instead, he cries and hugs his grandmother, shaking, shaking, shaking - wondering if he has the resolve to leave this world or home or _oh stars-_

When he wakes up the next morning, his grandmother kisses his forehead, and hands him a rope bracelet, the thread intertwined with a few shells. She ties it on his wrist, and it is coarse and loose.

“Each of your mothers exchanged one when they were married,” she explains, and Hunk’s breath falls through his body, until everything feels too tight and too wound up. He looks at it, and his vision blurs into a smear of color. She hefts his toolbox into his arms, and he almost says _no, i’ll get it_ but her face is firm, but suddenly so old at the same time. She holds his hand, and it feels as if his world is coming apart - because this is her way of saying he should go. He needs to.

“I'll come back, _tina,”_ he says, and her grip tightens. Hunk knows that is not a sure-fire truth - nothing is - but it is a promise.

 

Lance doesn't know.

Hunk has not told him - because of fear, or because, maybe of Veronica. Lance knows - knew - the Resistance through Veronica, and now she is dead. Hunk wants to ask what he thinks now, but Lance has not spoken to him - to anyone for three weeks.

The first night after Veronica was confirmed dead, Hunk had sat with Lance on the bathroom floor of his family’s house, listening to his parents explain in broken, tired words to all the younger cousins that Veronica was not going to come back. Lance had sat still for maybe half an hour, but then -

He'd started shaking, and there was a sob in his shoulders, and curses on his breath - _fuck it, fuck it, why, why, WHY, why -_ and his fists were banging against the floor, like a heartbeat. And Hunk had took his fists from the floor, bandaged the purpling bruises and scarlet blood spattered across Lance’s knuckles, and held him for a long, long, time.

At some point, he'd started crying too - but when he cries, it's like a whisper, a chime, like a choke, like he was trying to stuff his feelings back inside his brain so they would be safe. The Olkarion sky was twilight, and there were voices in the background, but all Hunk could hear was emotions being poured into the stupid fucking bathroom floor - tears and curses and _whys._

Lance hadn't talked again since then.

 

Lance is looking out the window. He is curled on his bed in a dark brown jacket - on the back is an elaborate v shaped stitched in with gleaming silver thread. It is Veronica’s - or it had been. She had loved that jacket.

“Lance,” Hunk says, his voice hoarse. Lance doesn’t turn - the only indication that he is moving at all is the cliff of his shoulders rising and falling with each breath.

Hunk bites back the stinging in his eyes, and moves to sit on the bed with Lance. He sits on the edge, back facing away from him.

There is a lot of things Hunk wants to ask - he had always been the person - the person to try to see the cracks within people and listen to their outpouring and their stories. Emotions were like parts of an engine - each carefully crafted to serve a specific purpose. Fear - to be careful. Anger - to exact revenge. And grief-

“Lance,” he says again.

Lance turns, just a little.

The words stick in his throat, hovering heavy on his tongue. Hunk swallows.

“I’m leaving for D’Qar.” There is still a part of him that wanted to go all out - say _Resistance,_ the whole full-bodied word that carried sacrifice and courage and hope all in one swoop. But there is also a part of him - a much bigger part that trembles with fear. He can’t say it.

Lance turns all the way, and his eyes lock with Hunk’s. They are haunted and hollowed - nothing like the bright, mischievous gaze Hunk has known for years and years.

Hunk is maybe expecting Lance to scream or cry - maybe even punch him. He’s memorized Lance’s spectrum over the years, and that all falls under it - and he squeezes his eyes shut, waiting, silently whispering that he will not blame Lance for whatever happens.

Lance does not say anything for a long time.

It is agonizing in the worst way possible. It’s the worst because Lance is a person who knows him inside and out. He’d been through everything with Hunk - made stupid jokes after bad nightmares, gave him hot caf on cold winter evenings, smiled and laughed and brought warmth whenever possible. And now, it’s just silent. Hunk doesn’t opens his eyes, but the quiet is squeezing his brain, so he starts talking.

“I know- about, you know, Veronica. And it’s a terrible freaking thing, Lance, and I _can’t_ just let them kill more people and more families and more homes - because she was a _good_ person - the best kind.” He breathes, then continues anyway. “And if I can do my part to stop that from happening - then -“

“Then what?” Lance says, whispering, and it’s low and raw. “Then what? The First Order decides they want to blow up more planets, like D’Qar, then fucking what? Then I lose both my sister _and_ my best friend, Hunk! I can’t- ”

He breaks off, and there is that catch in his breath again. He’s crying - but not like that day - and Hunk is crying too, because he can't help it. Everything is going too fast, _too fast_ , and maybe he should just stop and think-

He shifts a little closer and buries his face in his hands, hoping it will somehow make this ok, somehow make it a bad nightmare. And that voice, again, is haunting him, telling him - _he can't do this-_

“I'm not going,” he says, because he isn't going to lose Lance for this,  even though guilt thrums in his stomach.

He doesn't look up. He can't.

“Hunk,” Lance says,  his voice choppy and broken. He almost sounds… surprised?

“You can't give up something like this for- nothing. Just because I'm fucking selfish-” and oh, Hunk knows that voice. For all Lance is bright and warm, that is a part that almost never sees the light of day. It isn't true - stars, not by a long shot, and Hunk says just that when he forces himself to open his eyes.

“Don’t say that-” and he sounds angry, but he isn't, and Lance's mouth is turning up into a shaky grin.

“Don’t die, and I will.” It’s meant to be a joke, but there's something behind it, a layer of burning fear and desperation. Hunk can’t make promises, again,  but because Lance is his best friend, he says, “I'll try.”

Lance's grin becomes even more lopsided. “Ok. Ok.” His voice cracks.  Hunk hugs him close, and thinks about all their times together, every stupid joke and bad nightmare and holds on for a little too long, because he doesn't want to forget this. Because this person - these people - he'll hold them close and memorize them, think about them everyday. They are his reason. He thinks about Veronica and holds Lance.

 

His first official day at the Resistance base is not great.

Well, not great is more like one big fucking disaster, but whatever. He's the youngest and the newest engineer, so naturally he's the one that's fetching oil and spare parts for the pilot’s X-Wings and doing basic maintenance work. And that would be perfectly fine, if it weren't for the fact that he accidently stumbled on a meeting with the Resistance heads.

With Generals Astraea _and_ Wadekar.

_Both of them._

Ulaz, the engineer who'd been ordering him around all day sent him to do inventory on some new battery cells that were coming in. He'd stated that the stock room was somewhere in Sector C - _just walk around for a bit, Savea, you'll find it-_ which was admittedly super useless advice when one had no clue about where the hell anything was. He'd been walking around, trying to find the stockroom, when he'd opened some door and suddenly there were forty pairs of eyes staring at him.

Him, with his stupid yellow headband and seashell bracelet, him who can't put three words together because _oh stars,_ the generals are there. And they're staring right at him.

Fucking disaster.

General Astraea is tall, with dark skin and nebula white hair folded into a neat bun. She is all no nonsense, full force, with bright eyes that could see through anybody. Hunk has heard about her - her as a precocious senator, an unafraid leader, the girl who survived torture from Lord Zarkon, who watched her entire world explode unflinchingly. She is brave - brave and terrifying.

Wadekar is fierce and skilled and intrepid - known around the galaxy as an incredible pilot and a strategist, the heart of the original Rebel Alliance. His gaze is sharp, narrow, and Hunk thinks about him as a pilot, mouth drawn in a thin, razor-sharp line, perfectly maneuvering out of the way from the Empire. But there is something in him that is old and tired, old like the scar that crests under his jaw.

They aren't that much older than him - he'd heard of their tirade against the Empire in holos and stories from Veronica and his grandmother when he was young. But they have seen so much that makes them so.

“I-” he says, and he might throw up right there and his life will probably be

ruined forever. “I was- I got lost on the way- to-to-to the stockroom-” Hunk shuts up because if anything else comes out of his mouth, he will probably implode. Or die. Or something.

Somebody shouts, “That’s down the hall!” and Hunk runs out, his grandmother’s voice chiding him for not saying _thank you, haven't I raised you better?_ But right then and there, he promises that this will be completely wiped away from his head.

 

Most of his days at the Resistance are like this, minus completely embarrassing himself - getting oil and spare parts, doing inventory. He isn't actually allowed to touch anything, not yet anyway, but Ulaz informs him that that isn't a hard and fast rule. The pilots and the engineers have a good relationship - they snipe and snark, but there is a mutual respect that runs low. It's almost like the momentary quiet whenever people like the generals or Admiral Smythe walk into a room.

There's no formal introduction to when he actually starts working on the X-Wings. One day, he's doing inventory and one of the pilots says, “Hey, Savea!” and then proceeds to ask him if he can fix her accelerometer. It turns out, he can. He starts fixing things from that day on.

It turns out that fixing things comes with lots of conversation.

Seriously, the things Hunk hears about could fill a book. Mostly he just hums along, but one time, one of the pilots - Rizavi, he recalls, is rambling about her friend Kinkade.

“...and he keeps telling me that James is ass at maintaining shit on his ship, so everyone else has to do it. It's a real problem. Stars, I don't even know what to do.”

Hunk pauses for a moment, then focuses on calibrating her holographic screens, before cautiously stating, “Maybe he's not really experienced? He's pretty new. Just give him some pointers, maybe.”

Rizavi blinks. There is a pause in which Hunk expects her to yell at him or something, but she just cocks her head. “… that's not a bad idea, Savea.” Something in Hunk’s chest warms at that - helping people here almost reminds him of Olkaria IV.

Of course, it also starts Hunk’s career as the Resistance’s permanent therapist, because when the advice works, the other pilots come to him too. Which, you know, is kind of awesome, but also kind of terrible, because Hunk has no time to do _anything_ anymore.

 

The thing with the Resistance is that everyone double-tasks - namely that everyone on the Resistance base can cover for everyone else. It's a survival method, but it proves useful. Some of the pilots double as medics, and all the engineers double as technical officers for missions.

Which means when Hunk gets his first official mission, he might freak out in the stock room for like ten minutes. Technical officers are the backbones of missions - they keep track of signs, keep communication up with the pilots, and make sure everything goes as painless as possible. And Hunk can't think of anything but Veronica, her hands shaking, her eyes wide, tech yelling in her ear that she's going to _crash-_

The mission Hunk is assigned to is low-risk, recon. The X-Wing pilots - Rizavi, Griffin _, (james griffin_ ) and Ryou are stationed near a First Order controlled moon, checking for any outgoing and ingoing transports and transmissions. They aren't preparing for any sort of fight, just hovering around. There are three other tech officers, all with headsets clamped over their heads, each with a similar focused look. Hunk doesn't have that much to do - he just needs to check the oil levels every so often and inform when they're getting low. He listens to the tinny crackle over the headset, and watches, watches, watches.

In this age, there is a point where everything could go to shit, and Hunk wants to be ready for it. It isn't likely, but he does.

For ten hours, everything is okay. Hunk switches shifts, barely manages to take a nap, and heads back, ready for another long shift. But-

But when he gets there, everything is wild, people are yelling, and General Astraea is there, shouting for status updates. It doesn't really register in Hunk's head, and then it does.

Everything has gone to _shit_.

He darts over to his post, and before clamping on his own headset, he asks the analyst next to him - “What _happened_?”

The analyst next to him says, “They’ve been compromised. Some new First Order tech detected their cloaking and opened fire.”

Hunk snaps on his own headset, and listens for the pilots, listens to them rattle off lingo about what they're going to do. He asks for levels on battery and oil, which, thankfully are all okay. Everyone is taut, tense, wound up, waiting for more bad news, and Hunk realizes - this is normal for them.

You don’t join the Resistance for success or fame or because you expect to win.

You join because your heart is weary, because it knows how to fight, how to push through, even when the galaxy throws everything at you. You join because you know you will lose, but keep going anyway.  

 _“I'm hit! Stars, it’s bad-”_ It's Rizavi's voice, and Hunk thinks about her, only four years older than him. “ _My oil levels are tanking, damn it, I don't know if I can get out, I can’t even pilot this-”_

“Use the horizontal stabilizers, Rizavi!” One of them yells, and the other says, “You need to eject!”

_“I- oh shit, shit, fuck, it’s jammed, son of a bantha-”_

And there is Veronica again - fierce and unafraid to die, but her hands are shaking and she's crying- and Lance is crying and Hunk is-

_“I'm sorry, General-”_

None of the engineers are saying anything, just standing there, but Hunk _can’t-_ and an idea forms in his head, and it might be too good to be true, especially if the eject has gone to crap-

Hunk snaps up, and comms in. The other engineers don't even spare him a glance when he says, “Can you try stabilizing your engine and rerouting the battery from your blasters? You'd be able to jump into hyperspace, I think-” he hopes he is right, hopes the blueprints running through his head are right.  

There is quiet on the other end,  and then, her voice, small, “ _You're sure?”_

Hunk realizes one thing. She expects to die. They all do. It makes his chest tight and his eyes sting.

One of the other engineers has brought up a blueprint, fumbling with quick calculations. She looks up, and says, “That'll work.”

It suddenly occurs to Hunk that he needs to say something.  “I- okay. Rizavi, go ahead.”

There is a quiet. Then Rizavi's voice crackles in, soft. _“Thanks, Savea. See you on base.”_

The room is silent for maybe a second, and then Griffin starts talking, and it goes back to the aerial battle. Hunk lets out a breath. He didn't know he was holding it in.

 

When the pilots come back, Rizavi hugs Hunk tight, and her face is wet against his shoulder. For some reason, he doesn't cry. He wants to.

And - at some point that night, it all crashes through him. It hadn't before, but this is like finding air, and Hunk’s crying in the storeroom, alone and away from everything he knows. His shoulders are shaking and he can’t breathe - and a small part of misses his grandmother's voice and Lance's smile and his nieces and nephews and Veronica -

It burns. But by the next month, it hurts only a little bit - like a scab that has healed across all odds. And life goes on - the planets orbit, he takes inventory, fixes ships, and gives advice, lets himself be in tune to the symphony of Resistance, because anything else hurts.

 

Hunk has turned nineteen in the Resistance when he finds General Astraea in the group workshop, waiting for -

“She's waiting for you, Savea,” Ulaz says around a wrench in his teeth. He’s fixing up a piloting droid.

The batteries that Hunk is holding clatter to the floor, and he can feel his whole chest squeezing and his heart beat staccato.

She is there - as elegant as she always is, standing with a hard set of her shoulders. Hunk makes his way over to her, and timidly offers a, “General?”

She looks at him, and her eyes - her eyes - they are warm, kind. “Officer Savea,” she says. “You're quite young.”

Hunk knows people talk about this - about the fact that almost a third of Resistance technically can't even get their pilot license yet, even younger than him. He squares his shoulders and lifts his head. But then, Hunk realizes something - she knows this too. And she isn't even surprised.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says again. A pause. “Did you need me for anything?”

The general looks at him, studying him carefully. Then, she finally says, “I am attending a diplomatic summit on Auerolos. They seem to be in favor of supporting the Resistance. I would like you to be in attendance as the resident engineer, as Auerolos offers many technological advantages, if they join.”

There is a moment in time where Hunk can't breathe, so he focuses on the sharp _click-clack_ behind him. General Astraea looks mildly worried at his lack of an answer, but when she movies to prompt him, he says, “Y-Yes! I'd be happy to join, General. Just, um…”

Hunk has been making visits back to Olkaria IV since he'd joined, and his next one is next week. The thought of missing a chance like that makes his stomach coil hard on itself.

It seems she already knows. “The summit is in a month, Officer Savea. I'll inform you if I have any more information.”

She walks out, with an air in her step, and Hunk is left thinking - what the hell did he just do?

“Good job, Savea,” Ulaz drawls, a little sarcastic, and Hunk can barely manage a strangled “ _Thanks_ ” before hightailing it back to the inventory closet.

 

They are drinking kumkafa caf on the outside porch of Lance’s house, and it is bittersweet and milky under his tongue. Hunk had made it, made it like he had when they were little and he had just started cooking. It tastes the same. He’s already visited his grandmother, spun her tales of X-Wings and space and stars and moons, watching her eyes crinkle. The stars are flecks are white against a canvas of rich indigo and violet, and Hunk thinks he can see a constellation that he studied in school.

He's told Lance all his stories at this point, and Lance has admittedly been pretty… muted about the whole idea. He hasn't really said anything, but he's coming back, Hunk thinks _._

Hunk breaks the silence. “So, I met General Astraea.”

Before that time, he’d only ever seen her from a distance.

Lance looks at him, and his voice cracks. “ _Allura_ Astraea? Like Princess Allura?” Both of them have heard all the stories, can recount the tales by heart, but it all fades away when approached by the real thing.

Hunk takes another slurp of his caf. “I'm going to another planet in a few weeks,” he says. “They're thinking about supporting the Resistance.” He doesn't look at Lance when he says that - because even though he hasn't seen Lance become angry or resentful, Hunk is afraid that there is a part and it is just biding its time - waiting to alight and burn. There is a cool silence between them, nothing but the whooshing wind that curls into his shoulders.

“Hunk,” Lance starts, then stops. Hunk looks up to find him staring into his mug of caf.

“Yeah?”

“There was this thing Veronica used to say to me,” Lance says, and Hunk's breath is catching and his fingers tighten on the mug handle, because Lance has said nothing of her since - since she died. Hunk, maybe, has been waiting for it, all these days, for another night on the bathroom floor, his head murky with sharp sadness and muted grief. But it has not come up once.

Hunk listens, because that's what he does.  

“Something… about how we all know what’s coming, every one of us, but it’s our job to look it in the eye and do something anyway.” Lance is still looking into his cup of caf, as if it would define all the secrets of the universe for him.

Hunk gets it, a little bit - understands how everything in the frickin’ universe is inevitable, constantly expanding farther and farther away from each other, stars being born in nebula clouds, stars dying into into brilliant supernovas, life, death - it’s all cyclic. It’s all going to happen. The First Order has happened as well, in spite of everything. But, in that same nebula cloud, that same dying fire, the Resistance emerged too. That has to count for something.

He almost understands what Lance is going to say before he says it.

“I’m-“ Lance stops, and this is not him - all stuttering words and shaky breaths. He straightens himself, tan shoulders held back like a pilot, dark eyes fierce.

“I’m going to join the Resistance too.” And in the hollow chirp that follows, Hunk hears, _because that’s what she would have wanted._

Hunk wants to object - why, he doesn’t know - maybe it’s because he’s seen pilots go down, heard their last words at this point, heard their cries, and he can’t - won’t imagine Lance’s last. But he can’t do anything to stop it - and Lance hadn’t stopped him, despite everything, so all he does is look at him. He feels his lips arch a little.

“Well,” he says, and stars, he sounds so freaking cheeky, where did _that_ come from? - “They’ve got a lot of Corellian rum. And they throw a lot of parties. I could show you around.”

Lance looks at him for exactly five seconds before he cracks up. It’s a sharp sound, but it’s warm and here and is everything that Lance hasn’t been for the past few months. He grew up with that laughter, so Hunk lets himself laugh with a last slurp of his caf, and doesn’t let himself think beyond this moment.

 

Auerolos, Hunk thinks, is probably what his version of ‘died and gone to the stars’ is.

General Astraea was right when she said _technologically advanced_ \- the whole of what he’s seen has crazy advanced stuff that he's never even seen before - all intertwining, interconnected, beautiful and elegant and complex all at the same time. He’s been in exactly one meeting - a ceremonial diplomatic one that happened when they’d first come to this planet, and even then, he’d been pretty sure he’d just been gaping at all the tech around him. He and the rest of the Resistance members who had come aren’t needed for a while - not until the ceremonial peace ball later tonight. The thought of it makes Hunk’s insides twist and tangle.

He’s in his quarters when his holocomm alerts him, and Hunk opens it to find a holo of Shay. He smiles - Shay is a head medic, kind, sweet, infinitely compassionate, but firm when need be - he’ s seen her physically force two pilots into the medbay. She’s one of Hunk’s friends as of his time of the Resistance, a reminder that he’s not completely and totally screwed. But she’s not smiling - which is strange.

“Hey Shay,” Hunk says. He squints. “Is everything ok?”

“Hunk,” she says, and her voice is low and dark, and something in Hunk’s stomach swoops. “The planet Oriande has been decimated by the First Order.”

It is not surprising, Hunk thinks, when his stomach drops hearing that, just in time with his heart.

 

They all know, by the time they all have to report to the ball - Hunk recognizes in the slump of shoulders, the hollowness of eyes, the mutterings of getting drunk, forgetting all of this. Hunk doesn’t know if he can erase this, erase the tone in Shay’s voice when she said that, erase the image he imagined - people screaming, a planet’s remnants scattered across space. The General, even in her flowing gown and cape, with her hair pinned up, her shoulders set back, - there’s something in her body that is tired. Hunk remembers that she’s going through this twice, one after another, a never ending battle.

Later, watching all the other members of the Resistance down drinks, he looks at his own glass, filled with some kind of orangey alcoholic liquid, with a little silver flower in it. He’s not _technically_ of standard drinking age, but he’s pretty sure he saw Griffin drinking three shots in a row, and Griffin’s only a half a year older than he is. This is a ball - an actual ball with dancing and music and formalities, but he’s just kind of standing here like an idiot, freaking out on whether he should drink or not. Stars, what would people say?

Hunk’s thinking of Lance probably laughing his ass off at him, when he realizes he doesn’t have his drink. He frowns. Did he set it down somewhere?

He’s turning around, panicking maybe a little, when he bumps into somebody. Hunk’s scrambling for a sorry, when he catches bright white hair and a gold circlet.

“Hunk?” General Astraea says, and- and- is that Hunk’s drink?

Crap, crap, crap - she’s only ever called him Savea, and judging by how everyone else is already started falling over, this alcohol is way stronger than Corellian rum. Hunk can’t exactly make his mouth work. At all.

General Astraea is looking not at him, but behind him, and she’s smiling, like a girl. “Oh,” she says, almost giddy. “That’s Senator Romelle Tralina. She looks quite lovely in that shade of periwinkle, don’t you think? I wanted to ask if she’d like to dance, but I suppose she’s busy.”

Hunk is thinking about what will happen if people find out about this. People will kill him. Oh _stars_ , General Wadekar will kill him. And then resurrect him and dump him on a backwater planet like Jakku and he will never be heard from again. Oh god. Oh god, _why?_ General Astraea is rambling and Hunk has caught on to the back end of what she is saying.

“... and stars and moons, _what_ are they doing calling themselves the First Order? The First Order of what, incompetents? Don’t they already know of the Empire? I mean, the Empire was full of incompetents - I could list them all - Zarkon, that asshole Sendak, Lotor-“ there’s something sad in her voice at that name, something tired and old, even though she’s only older by by about nine or ten years.

“Lotor, stars-“ and she’s drinking again. “They all reprimanded me for that when they found about that - _don’t go fraternizing with the enemy, Allura, they’re the bad ones,_ and I hold my ground. All right, I didn’t know this until he said, ‘Oh, sorry, Allura, Zarkon’s my father, and by default, I’m an evil bastard as well, I have to dump you and send you off to him like a good little evil son’- he was so dramatic, seriously! And then these idiots go blow up another planet? Wasn’t Altea enough? Are they that unoriginal?”

This is not Hunk’s life. This is not-

“And,” General Astraea says, her eyes fierce. “I _still_ maintain that what I did was infinitely better than the holo drama that starred the only Jedi in the galaxy and the best pilot in the Rebellion. I mean, do you _know,_ are you aware of how long I had to bloody wait for them to admit anything? And to think I was friends with these two, best friends - I could tell for three years and they couldn’t for three bloody seconds!”

Something doesn’t line up, and Hunk’s thinking, thinking, thinking, and asks, against his better intuition, “Who are you talking about?”

General Astraea throws her hands up in the air. “Shiro and Adam!”

Hunk’s eyes widen, and his mouth is dry. “Do you mean Takashi Shirogane and Adam Wadekar?” he asks, waiting for a _no, don’t be ridiculous, Savea,_ and then hopefully he’s waking up back at the Resistance, where this is all a terrible, terrible dream. The old tales are in his head - a fearless princess, a skilled pilot, the only Jedi left, the Rebellion, all of it.

She scoffs. “Of course them. Who kriffing else?”

She is angry. But she is sad as well, sad in the hidden kind of way people are sometimes.

“But… Takashi Shirogane has been missing for seven years,” Hunk offers uselessly. “He… just disappeared.”

General Astraea looks at him now, a little lost. “Yes,” she says. “You’re right. He just bloody went off with no explanation, nothing, zilch, good for him. Just up and left. Some Jedi. And just when everything was seemingly fine, you know...”

She’s trailing off, a little wistful, a little lost in her own memories, the way people sometimes are when they look at reality and see nothing that they like.

She sits at one of the tables. Hunk sits with her. They don’t talk for a while and Hunk doesn’t drink anything, just holds his breath.

“You know,” she says, finally, soft. “When he- Shiro first went missing, I couldn’t feel anything from his end.” And this is when Hunk remembers the Force, that energy that surrounds and encapsulates, which some people are attuned to, some people know like their own name and soul and home planet. “And I thought - it meant he had died. And the _look_ on Adam’s face, I mean-“

“Stars, he cried for days. That man’s been through a war and a half, been frozen in carbonite, escaped the Empire, and the only time he cries is because the person he loves might have died.” Her voice has gone all trembly at this point, like she’s holding back her own tears, like she’s trying to distance herself from all this loss.

“And one day, I felt something, just a little - but I knew that it was him. That he was there, even though he may not come back.” There’s a tear or two on her face at this point, and she scrubs it away.

Hunk looks at his own feet, thinks of these three people dependent on each other, people who had been each other’s stars and galaxy and home at some point - thinks maybe he gets that idea, of having people that close and being afraid of them leaving you alone. It’s a little selfish, but also instinctive - loving people that much. He knows that.

 

General Wadekar is pinching the bridge of his nose and has taken off his glasses. Neither of those things are a good sign.

“So, let me get this straight. You want to find Takashi Shirogane.”

Hunk thinks all of this sounded a lot better in his head. “Um, actually, I’d like to make it a mission, sir. If that would be alright…”

He sets down some of the datapads that he’s brought. “Um, I think I might have pinpointed what quadrant of the galaxy he’s in-“

General Wadekar looks at him, inscrutable, but looking a little curious. A little angry too, but well. Hunk gets that you wouldn’t exactly be happy if your significant other disappeared without a trace.

“You’re aware he’s been missing for seven years? Even if you’ve located that, Shirogane has hid his tracks well. What purpose would this mission serve, Savea?”

Shirogane, Hunk notices, heart dropping a bit. Not Shiro.

This is what he thinks - _it’s for you. it’s for general astraea because you’ve gone through so much and lost your best friend and something more - you can’t fight a war without that person by your side. you can’t._

This is what he says instead.

“He’s the last Jedi, right? The Resistance could use someone like him in case we get more Force-sensitives. You know… before the First Order finds him.”

Which is true, of course, but General Wadekar still does not look completely convinced, and Hunk is feeling desperate, so he does something very stupid.

He says - “Well, General Astraea already approved it, so, you know.” This is a lie, or at the very best, a half truth. Hunk’s stomach coils at the thought of either of them.

Wadekar’s eyes widen, and he seems to have lost his words. Hunk stares at him, waiting for the moment that Wadekar sees through him, straight through and gives him a curse-filled reprimand. He’s seen it happen to so many others.

There is a long pause, full of tension, before Wadekar says, a little lost, “Your mission’s approved.”

Hunk doesn’t expect the reply. He’s been building up some reply in his head - one full of lots of examples and proof that Takashi Shirogane needs to be _right here, right now -_ so his mind snaps a little.

He gapes. “Sir?”

Wadekar glances at him again and his eyes are old and dark. But, somewhere, there is something that resembles hope. Hunk doesn’t say anything else because it’s all made so clear to him. He gets it. He gets all of it.

He walks out of the office as quickly as he can, trying to control the rabbit-fast beat of his heart.

 

_(later, adam will approach her as he’s always done - fast, sure, certain. She is looking at a star map when he says, voice a little broken, “You fucking approved a mission to find Shiro?”_

_to any other person, that would sound angry, betrayed, torn apart. but allura knows adam. this is his version of heartbreak._

_but he’s wrong. she didn’t approve of any sort of mission, even though the thought has been crawling around her head for years. she’d even gathered preliminary data, only to give up on it later. then -_

_she remembers a planet blowing up. she remembers the blunt taste of alcohol under her tongue. she remembers unraveling her life to hunk savea, who’d stayed there for the better part of the night. she remembers the look in adam’s eyes when she hadn’t been able to sense shiro, years and years ago._

_she looks at him, a little pointedly. “Hunk is very capable, Adam. He might be able to do what none of us could.”_

_at least, she hopes so._

_she holds his hand. once upon a time this might have meant something, but it’s only a symbol of all the loss that hangs between them.)_

 

Lance comes to D’Qar on a rainy day. It’s cold outside and Hunk has to bundle up whenever he runs across the base. There are people who look at him, double-take. There are whispers that hum of Veronica, the crash, incredulity that Lance wants to be a pilot at all.

Lance takes it in stride. He charms people with his (crappy) sense of humor, smiles which seem to make his whole face alight, and banters with his fellow pilots. Lance is a good actor, Hunk realizes, a little sad. He catches the slump of Lance's shoulders more often than he would like, offers to do something with him as soon as he does.

He is leaning on the X-Wing Hunk is working on, even though Griffin's probably going to yell at him for it again. Hunk asks for his wrench and Lance passes along tools methodically. He gives Hunk a rag when he pushes himself out under the aircraft.

“You good?” He asks when Hunk looks a little more winded than usual. Hunk waves him off, then says, “Want some oatmeal cookies? I think the mess has some extra-”

“Hunk,” Lance says, eyes dropping. “You don't have to do this.”

Hunk has no clue what he's talking about. “What?”

“You know-” Lance makes a vague gesture that Hunk isn't fluent in. “Taking care of me.”

“But-”

Lance interrupts him again, his voice kind. “Not that I don't appreciate it. I-I do. It's awesome. I mean - I’m going to be ok. I am. I promise.”

Hunk looks at Lance, and sees the brightness in his eyes for what seems like the first time in a while. He missed it - stars, he missed Lance. They've been best friends for how many freaking years for a reason. Now they stand on the forefront of a conflict, looking out ahead for a long, long time. He bumps his shoulder with Lance anyway.

“Ok, macho man,” Hunk teases, feeling lighter. “But does this mean I can give the cookies to Griffin?”

Lance's eyes widen, and his mouth arches in a wide grin. “You wouldn't, Savea.”  Hunk grins, waits for him to catch up.

“Your call, dude.”

 

It stumbles into days, weeks, months, years. After a while, he's no longer a teenager, no longer an almost - adult, but an actual person that has to make actual decisions. Decisions like whether the fuel cells in the pilot hanger need to be replaced, whether there is time to evade that TIE Fighter, assigning different engineers to different tasks.

Hunk is twenty one when he finishes the map to find Takashi Shirogane. It is full of years of documentation, of coordinates, of trial and error, of some dumbass drive to keep going no matter what. He finishes it just before the sunrise crackles over the horizon of D’Qar, manages to stumble into a major meeting with the holodisk in hand. He almost trips on his own feet and falls - seventeen year old Hunk would have freaked out maybe, but now, he just gets up, holds it out to General Astraea.

She looks at him, a little unsure. She reaches out, almost as if to take it, but says, soft, “It isn't time yet.”

Hunk wants to ask when will be the right time, _ever,_ to find this person who has evaded sun and moon and people for years, only found in this tiny holodisk. He’s not angry, though - maybe disappointed.

General Astraea makes him split the map up. She states that if the base were ever to get captured, the First Order never could know the whole story. They’d only know the broken parts of a puzzle piece. She tells him to seal one piece into the aging droid VLT-D2, which has been in low power mode for a while. It’s shiny, polished, with its color gleaming, but all the same, lifeless.

The other part of the map is taken to a small moon with an even smaller village, hidden away with a person who knew of the old.

She says to him, quiet, “We can only retrieve it when we have nothing else.”

And it’s strange that she views Takashi Shirogane as the be-all, end-all, when Wadekar obviously doesn't. And yet, he’d agreed to her plan with his mouth in a tight line, his dark eyes cloaked. Hunk wonders if he just wants to stall the pain, the hurt that will inevitably come with seeing him again. People are protective of themselves and their hearts.

The possibility of finding Takashi Shirogane, for both of them, seems like enough.

 

It is two years later that Wadekar calls him in and says, voice rough, “We need to get the map.”

That part freaks Hunk out, just a little, because has it really come to this? Is this their last, best option? He wanted to ask all those years ago if they’d ever envisioned this moment - the very moment when they would see that fragmented hole in their lives and want to patch it up. He doesn’t question it.

Lance is now an aerial commander with a steely glint in his gaze, a knack for getting out of tight spots, and an sharp eye. He’s no longer in the shadow of his sister - he holds himself taut against his own past. He also happens to be the one who is sent to retrieve said map from the small moon, which Hunk finds out the week before.

They’re reviewing procedure in Hunk’s room when Lance says, “You know, I didn’t think I’d be here now.”

Hunk looks at him, then realizes, thinking about his sharp anger and grief at seventeen, that loss that has molded his decision, that he hadn’t either. It is all so natural to him that he’s never thought of anything different, but it’s eye-opening to realize what led him here. At seventeen years old, he’d been a kid with a pretty good working knowledge of ships, a pulsing duty in his heart, and the tendency to barf whenever things got bad.

And now-

He’s still all of those things - he’s seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, however long it all goes. But he’s also irrevocably not.

It’s a little confusing.

 

There are six technical officers assigned to this mission. No one wants to take chances. Hunk is in charge, settles in his own headset. It crackles with a bit of static, and in the space it takes to adjust, he thinks.

He was seventeen when he knew death.

He was eighteen when he joined.

He was nineteen when Allura Astraea told him of things he’d never meant to hear.

He was twenty one when he finished a map to find someone lost.

And now, he is twenty three, waiting for the moment when it all begins. Because that’s really what all of this is - beginning after beginning, revelation after revelation, whether it be from an old rebellion or a new resistance - whether it be from a pilot you heard crying over the comms or the best friend you’ve known your entire life.

The static crackles, then Lance’s voice leaks in. “I’m ready.”

Hunk gives his best friend the go over the comms a month after he turns twenty three, two years he finishes something deemed impossible, four years after he had started it, and five years after he had stepped on a ship away from the only home he has ever known.

And Hunk has been a pragmatist for years - that’s why he signed up to be an engineer. But there has always been that part of him that wondered about having the stars in the palm of your hand.

He glances at the star maps that fill the control room - star maps that tell stories of so many people, so many lives. A long time ago, Hunk might have been afraid to think of all that.

He isn’t anymore.  



End file.
